# Sourdough beard tutorial ..Part 1 - Growing your starter.



## Arnie (Jan 5, 2009)

Sourdough bread is the oldest form of leavened bread, and in my opinion, it's the best. Sourdough has better flavor and better keeping qualities than breads using commercial yeast. No other bread can match the flavor and texture of a well-made sourdough. IMO

Bread in its simplest form is composed of only 3 ingredients: flour, water and salt. Yet it is the backbone of almost every culture's cuisine. It is amazing that such complex and satisfying flavors can be coaxed from just those 3 things. That is the alchemy of naturally leavened bread.

But sourdough requires more time and skill to make than a yeasted bread or a quick bread. As Rose Levy Beranbaum puts it: Sourdough is the final frontier, the Zen of bread making.

The science is complex; the interplay of wild yeast and lactobacilli; the balance of PH; the acids affecting the conversion of starch to sugar, etc, etc. But we don't need to go into that. Bakers used sourdough culture for millenia without knowing exactly what was going on. They knew it worked, and they learned to control and utilize the wild yeast and bacteria for their breads. So can we.

The first step is to grow a culture. It's easy, all it takes is a couple ingredients and some time.

I use organic whole wheat and whole rye flours, and water. That's all. Some folks recommend using bottled water, but I use tap water just as often, and with good results. It's your choice.

Day one:
Make sure everything you use is very, very clean. A young sourdough culture can become contaminated. 
Mix 2 tablespoons of the wheat flour, 1 tablespoon of the rye flour and 3 tablespoons of water. Put that into a tupperware container or a used yogurt container like I do sometimes. It will look like this:









Cover it and put it in a warm place. The bubbles you see are from the mixing of the ingredients, in a few minutes they'll be gone and your young starter will look inert.

Days two, three and four,,,,,not much change in appearance. After day 2 feed the starter daily using one tablespoon rye and one wheat, and 2 tablespoons water each time. Check the smell of your culture. It should smell a little musty , "Primal" is how I think of it. It's an intriguing smell. If it smells FOUL or if there is color, like pink, red or purple, toss it and start over.

Day five:










Success!!!! See all the bubbles? What you don't see in this picture is that it is "working". It's foaming and bubbling; and smells almost a little tart and fruity.

Now the starter needs some time to grow before it is ready to do the work of rising bread dough, so feed it daily. Refresh it with one part flour and one part water for about 2 weeks. Use about one third the volume of starter. In other words, if you have a cup of starter add a third cup of flour/water mixture. If it starts to outgrow your container toss some out before you feed it. You can put it in the fridge for a few days then bring it out for a few days at room temp. The reason is that the bacteria will grow better than the yeast at cold temps, so you'll get more balance of the two.

Next, we'll learn to build a levain, or chef. Then the final dough.

Disclaimer:
I'm a chef, not a baker, so if any of you are professional bakers feel free to chime in and add your knowledge, experience and wisdom.


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## piperdown (Jul 19, 2009)

Great writing!!
When living in Idaho I had a sourdough mix from Jackson Hole WY that I used for years.
Breads good, sourdough flapjacks...GREAT!

Some RG coming your way!


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## Arnie (Jan 5, 2009)

Thanks, Eric




Ahhh, I just noticed that I mis-spelled "bread" 

Can a moderator please change "beard" to "bread" in the title?? Thanks!


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## d_day (Aug 24, 2008)

When I get sourdough in my beard, I just brush it out. 

Nice post, and something I've always wanted to do.


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